Thanks for the info! I think we can certainly find arguments on what we would call a safety net or not, especially for a distro aiming for a more advanced (or adventurous) user.

Yeah, I would not advise a new user to use OpenSuse. There are just enough rough edges, even at my skill level, that I run into hiccups. I'll say my installs are non standard and I've tweaked a lot, so it could be user error.

PolKit is an enigma to me, especially since Suse seems to modify it, so it's not entirely the same as upstream and thier documentation is inconsistent. Steam tries to modify network settings on start, invoking a polkit rule. Depending on the DE, KDE just works, XFCE asks for the admin password, Enlightenment spams the password dialog, locking up the environment.

Maybe I should get this influencer guy to try it on OpenSuse? Lol

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Quoting: Arten

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Arten

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: AussieEeveeThere is a tiny little warning blended in with all the other white noise on the screen, and blaming Linus is just silly.

TINY? lol - dude, there was NO "white noise". There's FIRST an explicit warnings, very clearly put, AND info on what exact packages are about to be installed (for you to make up your own mind), then ANOTHER very explicit warning AND you're required to type a bloody SENTENCE to get through with it.
If that ain't clear enough then you're not really mature to use a system that gives you full control. You're supposed to READ what the system tells you. Read, and comprehend.

With great powers comes great responsibilities - and that goes for the package managers too. Most definitely.

But if you're after a OS that completely PADS you inside a fuzzy box where you can do nothing to harm you - well then Linux is not, was never and hopefully never will be your right choice.

Are you aware about incident has been on Pop!_OS? Beginer friendly distro?

Far be it from me to continue what is turning toxic, but it's hard not to point out that the problem was actually that the install from the gui didn't work and didn't break the system, and it took googling, following random comments from the 'net, and a command line to actually "break" it (not really broken, just without a graphical desktop).

If the reaction from (and I keep wanting to type POS, even though I know the bad humour in that) had been to do exactly what KDE has done here, would the conversation be different now?

And reason why is get to googling is gui fault. Gui can more explicitly say "try later or report error" and when you google it anyway apt can force you to write "Yes, remove esencial packages", or "Yes, potentialy break system" instead of "Yes, do as I say" becasue "Yes, do as I say" tells nothing.
Migrating Windows users dont know about writing sentence is somethink to be aware of.
I did not say that APT fix is best way. What i prefere is "Yes, potentionaly break system" and/or hide everethink from output except warnings/errors and and instruction to write "Yes, potentionaly break system" and another option "write 'detail' for full information"... That is my prefered way how handle this.

I agree. While my preference would be to significantly update apt's UI to provide better formatted info, I can't really be upset at this change.

The package manger is so powerful, fairly unique, and often used, it really needs a very good UI. We all know a package manger warning or error is a big deal, but brush off the hundreds of warnings and errors WINE throws out while gaming, because we understand the difference of the importance of those programs to the system, how common they occur, and thier impact.

Heck, I'd be ok with a short intro paragraph on first run emphasizing that the warning and errors can lead to system failure. I think sudo does a first run warning. Could even do it color! Or bold! Make use of all our fancy new terminal font abilities!!

Something like:

** WARNING - SYSTEM MODIFICATION **
The package manager ALTERS CRITICAL SYSTEM FUNCTIONS. Ignoring warnings or errors on ANY operation may result in system breakage. ESSENTIAL packages are needed for basic functionality and should NOT BE REMOVED. (And... Add something witty?)

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Quoting: Glog78Since i use arch on my machine , there is no real default "net"

Really? I'm not familiar with arch, I've used the wiki a ton... it's So helpful!!

But I'd be really surprised if you have to backup all your custom confs in /etc because pacman overwrites them on every update. Or that a DE doesn't use PolKit (or equivalent) without some sort of base default rules package.

I feel it would be a little weird to have no system safe guards, even coming from upstream.

*I could be totally wrong about Arch and if so, I'd gladly share a frosty beverage of your choice if you could enlighten me on the rules.d local override process for Polkit. Trying to fix an issue with Steam and the network.

** Oh, I missed that part in your post. If you count OpenSuse as "mainstream". It has full system snapshot by default, courtesy of BTRFS. Reboot, pick the old snapshot in GRUB and good to go! (Ok... you need a terminal command to finish the rollback, you know, altering the file system and all).

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Quoting: Glog78

Quoting: denyasisUmmmmmm

Y'all know you can turn the safety net off right?

Like it looks like it could be a command line option, or you could put it in the apt conf file.

It's not even a big deal. I mean the most we'd have to do is Google it when we run that issue.

but isn't exactly this what linus did -> turn of the safety net by going to the commandline and even ignoring the warnings there ?
How do you want prevent people from googling and doing still what they are not meant to do ?

It's an open source OS. You can do anything with it, even change the source to remove any safety net. While nothing will prevent that, I don't find it unreasonable to make it a little harder to nuke your system from the UI, especially for a program that gets a lot of user attention and use and so powerful/integral to the OS.

But if it's that oppressive, you can turn it off, just like the others. I can foresee doing that myself in some cases.

Come to think of that, I'm genuinely curious; What other safety nets do you turn off on your system?

I think mine are all on, the number of times apt has saved me be refusing to overwrite conf files in /etc is high.

Edit: sorry my spelling is horrible and apparently I can't complete a sentence today.

Edit: ahhh it's worse Everytime I read it!!!

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Ummmmmm

Y'all know you can turn the safety net off right?

Like it looks like it could be a command line option, or you could put it in the apt conf file.

It's not even a big deal. I mean the most we'd have to do is Google it when we run that issue.

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Ok, I'm not much of an RTS person, bit this looks awesome

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Quoting: ShmerlOpenGL for new projects will surely not be a thing. Non gaming applications are just progressing slowly, but they are going to move away from OpenGL, no question about it.

And support for OpenGl will end. It will not be maintained forever, no matter what industry likes it and what legacy programs use it.

I can say this for a fact as I work is place in a similar situation. The system that runs my entire workplace runs on... DOS.

Any replacement will use new, modern API's, because the language our system was written in isn't taught in University anymore.

I see no reason the same won't happen for OpenGL. Sure, there will still be running programs and apps 30 years from now, but something like zink will handle them long after driver support has gone.

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We all also have to remember that while the package manager (whichever you use) is an integral and important part of daily Linux use, there is no real equivalent in Windows.

Even the most basic concepts like the fact the OS is "modular" with dependencies and conflicts to packages all on the OS level is basically foreign.

Back to apt.... I figured I look at what we have to do if I really want to remove *that* package.
The change log in debian is not to helpful:

 
* Require argument to remove essential packages, do not prompt
  * Do not remove Essential/Protected due to dependencies.
    Thanks to Ariadne Conill for the inspiration

And from the diff, I assume you must set this argument to true:?

 
"APT::Get::Allow-Solver-Remove-Essential"

Sorry, I can't program and C is way beyond my ability to read, but I'm assuming we can just pass that with the rest of our arguments when we run apt ( or maybe set it in a conf file).

Come to think of it, could be good if you want to ensure *that* special package stays no matter what. I'm struggling to think of an example here though.

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The first game I've ever seen where the epilepsy warning seems to be an understatement, lol.

It does look... Intense... Like I'm not sure I'm hardcore enough to handle it.

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Quoting: F.UltraHow do we get people out of these prejudices?

If I may add to you list, there is also a prejudice (or preference?) against warnings.
We tend to ignore them for a variety of reasons ( it won't happen to me, it doesn't apply to me, I've done it before and nothing bad happened then, this is just for liability, they are too cautious... Etc)

I'll admit I'm guilty of that myself, borking my install more times than I can count because I wanted to try something different or new.

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